I’d like to think that at some point along the journey of my
life, I would have outgrown insecurities. It’s not that I ever made it my goal,
but when I was a kid, all the adults seemed to have it together. None of them
seemed like the world was eating them from the inside out with everything from “will
they like my book” to “Oh, god, I hope no one figures out I’m a complete
fraud.”

Because of that, I sort of assumed there must be something
wrong with me since I continued to feel the insecurities. I thought they were
something we would outgrow with age. I’d hoped that at some point I’d “get
there,” and I wouldn’t still wonder how long it would take before people
realized I was just a sheep in wolf’s clothing. I remember buying my first
house and wondering when the people were going to show up and say “Nope, sorry
ma’am, only grownups get to do that.”

It’s because I’ve never felt the way my mom looked when I
was a kid. She was always so confident and in charge of everything.

Turns out it was all a big fake.

My mom confessed to me how worried she was all the time when
we were kids. She told me about how she felt judged by people, how she could
never seem to get things right, how she decided that having clean butts was
better than having clean clothes on more than one occasion. She worried that she’d be
fired from her job. She worried that everything she did would turn out for
nothing. She worried about the bills.

And all that time, she swung through life like a wrecking
ball, obliterating obstacles dumb enough to get in her way. To give you an
example: she once chain-sawed a house in half, loaded it onto two flatbeds,
drove it forty miles, poured a foundation around it and rented it out for years
and years.

Yeah, she poured the foundation when I was still in a
playpen. That’s not the kind of woman you expect to be haggard by self doubt. And
yet, she was.

So yeah, I’d hoped to outgrow this self doubt, but the real
key is to keep going. You’re the only one who sees the insecurities. The people
around you see how you sawed that house in half and put it back together. (And to be honest, sometimes, they're worried you might be looking for something else to cut in half and load onto a truck to get it the heck out of your way)

I believe that self-doubt is ka healthy part of life. Whenever we step out and try to do something new, self-doubt will nag at us. However, as you have said, the most important thing to do is to step out and start doing whatever it is you feel like you should be doing and keep moving with it.

Whoa! That is just too awesome for words. I admire my mother so much more now that I am a mom. She got her nursing degree while I was a toddler and started working all these crazy shifts by the time I was in second grade. I can't imagine doing all that and having two young kids. But I turned out fine and have an independent nature because she wasn't always there to do everything for me. Since I'm at home and available to my kids, they depend on me for everything. It's darn annoying and I'll have to retrain myself (and my spoiling habits) to get them up to speed.

I think, maybe, showing enough confidence outwardly really means there's confidence there despite all the worries. I have like maybe 1% confidence and it doesn't show ever. My husband, always so confident and very rarely plagued with worry (except when he is and I can't tell). I don't know... I still hope I eventually grow into this person who could not care less.

The older I get, the more I realize that nobody really knows how to handle being an adult, but lots of people learn how to look like it. I was thinking that while I started reading this, and I'm oddly pleased to see that you've learned that too. ^_^

But like others have said, the best thing to do is keep going despite all the insecurities. I didn't make a resolution this year, but made a promise to myself that I would keep going, that I wouldn't let everything that feels like it's standing against me get me down. I know we're only ten days in, but so far, so good.